


Vanilla and Wildflowers

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: Firefly
Genre: Candles, Collaboration, Community: womenverse, Embedded Images, Gen, Post-Series Pre-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 10:30:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inara lights a few candles</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vanilla and Wildflowers

**Author's Note:**

> A collaboration for the [Let's Work Together](http://womenverse.livejournal.com/37001.html) challenge at [Womenverse](http://womenverse.livejournal.com). Graphic made by Erinm_4600.

Inara struck the match against the box and held it up. Matches were only used on some of the border planets, but she loved the tactile nature of them. Lighting a match was more personal than clicking on a Starter. As she stared at the dancing blue and orange flames, the smell of the match filled her senses. The smell was bitter, and common, and she shouldn't like that smell. But she did.

Just before the flame reached her fingertips, she quickly lit the candle. Striking another match, she didn't hesitate this time, but easily lit the rest of the candles. As the bundle of flames burned around her, the room began to fill with the scent of vanilla and wildflowers. It was a smell that reminded her of the borders, and Kaylee.

In fact, Kaylee had gotten her the first of these candles, to celebrate her one year anniversary on the ship. It was coarse, and discolored, but it had been, in Kaylee's words, 'the most elegant smelling candle on Boros.' To Inara, at the time, that had meant more to her than any one of the dozen gifts she had gotten from clients. The day she decided to leave Serenity, Inara had wandered away from the bar where Mal was waiting for his contact, and had peeked into the general store next door. They were selling the same kind of candles there, with the same scent, and impulsively Inara bought a whole crate of them. She had even gotten an 'elegant lady' discount from the befuddled shop mistress.

At the House in Madrassa, Inara had had candles made from the finest, purest, beeswax, cultured in the outer gardens. Those candles smelled of clove, and frankincense, and sandalwood, and they filled the cloistered and sacred rooms of the House. And Inara had filled her shuttle with those same candles, those same rich scents.

But now, as she placed another handful of candles along the last wall of her new, larger, quarters at the House, Inara realized how much she had changed. She didn't want this room to smell rich, like the House. She wanted her room to smell like vanilla and wildflowers. Like Kaylee and the Borders.

Like Serenity.


End file.
